I commenced my ride on the east bank of the Mississippi at Bayou Sara. Back of the town is a long hill, at the top of which is the old French village of St. Francisville—a collection of decaying, shanty-like houses, and with a few new, comfortable and handsome mansions.

A group of men at the tavern stared at me as if it were rare for a stranger to pass, and one of them got upon a horse and soon afterward joined me on the road.

Not from a particularly social disposition, however, for he scarcely returned my nod and replied not a word to my salutation, but with a frowning curiosity examined closely my clothing, horse and equipment. Following his example, I discovered a pistol thrust into the watch-fob of his pantaloons. His countenance was such as made me wish that I had been provided myself with a weapon if we were to travel far in company. I asked: “Can you tell me how far it is to Woodville, Sir?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you no idea of the distance?”

“You won’t get beyond there to-night.”

“Can I be sure of getting there before dark?”

”No place for you to stop this side of there, I reckon.”

“You can’t tell me about how many miles it is there?”

“No.”

Gradually I got the better of his taciturnity. He told me the land in the vicinity was owned by “big-bugs. “It used to be thought”`bout the richest sile God Almighty ever shuck up,” and was called the “gardying of the world.” But it was now much deteriorated. He had not lived here many years, but it had grown manifestly less productive under his observation. He pointed out the residences of several of the large Hemipterae aforesaid, mentioning their specific names and the number of negroes they possessed, always sneeringly. He himself was overseer for “one of the biggest kind of bugs,” who was now in Paris. He generally spent the Summer at Saratogy, or Newport, or Paris, “some of them Northern places.”

Suddenly reining off at a fork of the road, he said, without turning his [308]

[309] face at all toward me: “If you are gwine on to Woodville, that’s your road—this is mine,” and rode off, making no reply to my good bye.

Neither at the telegraph station at Bayou Sara, nor at several shops in which I afterward inquired, could I get any exact information about the road to be pursued to Natchez, or the distance to Woodville, which appeared by the map to be the first town upon the proper course. Afterward I made inquiry of twelve different persons, perhaps half of them negroes, whom I met or passed on the way. It was only by pertinacious questioning I could get any of them to give a guess at the distance, in miles; some thought it twenty, some thirty—none gave a number between these. The stupidity of the more brutalized slaves is often described by saying that they cannot count above twenty. I suspect a great many of the whites are but little more educated. This experience with regard to distances, at any rate, is very common. It is rare to find in the plantation districts a man, white or black, who can give you any clear information about the roads or the distances between places in his vicinity.

Coming from the flat coast country, I found the landscape pleasing, though rather tame in its features. For some miles about St. Francisville it has an open, suburban character, with a style of residences indicating rapidly accumulating wealth and advance in luxury among the proprietors. For twenty miles to the north of the town there is on both sides a succession of large sugar and cotton plantations. Much land still remains uncultivated, however. The roadside fences are generally hedges of roses—Cherokee and sweet brier. They are planted first by the side of a common rail fence, which while they are young supports them in the manner of a trellis; as they grow older they fall each way, and meet together finally, forming a confused, sprawling, slovenly thicket, often ten feet in breadth and four to six feet high. Trumpet creepers, grapevines and cat-briers, and, in very rich soil, cane, grow up through the mat of roses, and add to its strength. It is not so pretty as a stiffer hedge, yet very agreeable, and the road being sometimes narrow, deep and circuitous, delightful memories of England were often brought to mind.

There were frequent groves of magnolia grandiflora, large trees, and everyone in blossom. The magnolia does not, however, mass well, and those groves were much finer, which also were not unfrequent, where the beech, elm and liquidambar formed the body, and the magnolias stood singly out, magnificent chandeliers of fragrance. The cucumber magnolia, with a large leaf extremely beautiful at this age of the year, was less frequently seen.

The soil seems generally rich, though much washed off the higher ground. Young pine trees, and other indications of impoverishing agriculture, are seen on many plantations. The cultivation, however, is directed with some care to prevent this.

The soil is a sandy loam, so friable that the negroes, always working in large gangs, superintended by a driver with a whip, continued their hoeing in the midst of quite smart showers, and when the road had become a poaching mud.

Once only did I see a gang which had been allowed to discontinue its [310] work on account of the rain. This was after a very heavy thunder-shower, and the appearance of the negroes whom I met crossing the road back to their field, from the gin house, to which they had retreated, was remarkable.

First came, led by an old driver carrying a whip, forty of the largest and strongest women I ever saw together; they were all in a simple uniform dress of a bluish check stuff, the skirts reaching little below the knee; their legs and feet were bare; they carried themselves loftily, each with a hoe sloping over the shoulder and walking with a free powerful swing, like Zouaves on the march. Behind came the cavalry, thirty strong, mostly men, but some women, two of whom rode astride, on the plow mules. In the rear of all a lean and vigilant white overseer on a brisk pony. The men wore small blue Scotch bonnets, the women handkerchiefs, turban fashion, or nothing at all on their heads.

The slaves generally of this district appeared uncommonly well—doubtless because the wealth of their owners has enabled them to select the best from the yearly exportations of Virginia and Kentucky.

The plantation residences were generally of a cottage class, well shaded by trees, and sometimes with quite extensive and tasteful grounds, usually obtained by trimming out the natural groves.

An old gentleman, sensible, polite and communicative, a capital sample of the planters, who rode a short distance with me, said that many of the proprietors were absent, and some of the plantations had dwellings only for the negroes and the overseer. He called my attention to a field of cotton which, he said, had been ruined by his overseer’s laziness. The negroes had been permitted at a critical time to be too careless in their hoeing, and it was now impossible to recover the ground thus lost. Grass grew so rampantly in this black soil that, if it once got a good start ahead of you, you could never overtake it. That was the curse of a rainy season. Cotton could stand drouth better than it could grass The inclosures are not often of less than a hundred acres. Fewer than fifty negroes are seldom found on a plantation; many muster by the hundred. In general the fields are remarkably free from weeds and well tilled.

I arrived shortly after dusk at Woodville, a well-built and pleasant court town, with a small but pretentious hotel. Court I judged was in session, for the house was filled with guests of somewhat remarkable character. The landlord was indifferent, and, when followed up, inclined to be uncivil. At the breakfast-table there were twelve men beside myself, all of them wearing black cloth coats, black cravats and satin or embroidered silk waistcoats; all, too, sleek as if just from a barber’s hands, and redolent of perfume, which really had the best of it with the kitchen fumes. Perhaps it was because I was not in the regulation dress that I found no one willing to converse with me, and could obtain not the slightest information about my road, even from the landlord.

I might have left Woodville with more respect for the excess of decorum if I had not, when shown by a servant to my room, found two beds in it, each of which proved to be furnished with soiled sheets and greasy pillows, nor was it without much perseverance and bribery that I succeeded in getting them [311] changed on the one I selected to take. A gentleman of embroidered waistcoat took the other bed as it was, with no apparent reluctance, soon after I had effected my private arrangements. One washbowl and one towel, which had previously been used by some one else, was expected to answer for both of us, and would have done so but that I now carried a private towel in my saddlebags. Another requirement of a civilized household existed in connection with the hotel, only in an indecent form. A servant, when I inquired for it, confidentially advised me to follow the other gentlemen to the open stable-yard.

The bill was excessive, and the hostler, who had left the mud of yesterday hanging all along the inside of Belshazzar’s legs, and who had put the saddle on so awkwardly that I resaddled him myself after he had brought him to the door, grumbled, in [the] presence of the landlord, because I gave him no larger gratuity than a dime.

As I was riding out of the village, I met a middle aged man, wearing a shabby black suit and a dirty white cravat, perhaps a clergyman. He reined up across the road, so as to stand directly before me, and when I turned to pass, lifted his hands as if he would seize my bridle, at the same time asking abruptly but drawlingly, and in the monotonous, whining tone of a fatigued invalid: “Where did you get that horse?”

“In Texas, Sir.”

“Did you ride him all the way from Texas?”

“I rode to Opelousas and then came by steamboat.”

“Came where by steamboat?”

“To Bayou Sara.”

“Belong in Bayou Sara?”

“No, Sir.”

“Don’t belong about here, do you?”

“No.”

“Belong in Opelousas?”

“No, Sir, I belong in New-York.”

“In New-York—long way from home arn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Yes; Don’t belong in Texas then?”

“No, Sir.”

“What was you a doin’ there?”

“Traveling.”

“What did you come here for?”

“I am on the road to Natchez.”

“Going to Natchez?”

“Yes.”

“Yes—You’ll take boat, there I reckon; sell your horse, won’t you?”

“No, Sir, I intend to ride home to New-York.”

“To New-York! It’s a long way to New-York, arn’t it? Well, it’s a right good chunk of a horse for a journey; what you reckon he’s worth?” &c.

[312]

I tried several times to pass him, and finally did so, with some apology for my haste, to which he paid no attention, but after my back was turned upon him, calling out, “Nigger dog?”

“No, Sir,” I replied, with a smile; then recollecting the sort of men I had seen at the Hotel, I turned to look at him again, but his next question, made in the same stupid, good-natured tone, and a look in his wooden face, removed all suspicion.

“Didn’t you hear of no revivals, `spose, along?”

“No, Sir,—rather the other way.”

“I ’spose—Seems like there was a general holdin’ up don’t it? Bretherin ought to pray more. Smart sprinklin’ o’ Baptists, I expect, in Texas?”

I turned away again to conceal my emotions, and answered as soon as I could.

“I should think not, where I was best acquainted.”

“Heap o’ Methodist bretherin there, ain’t ther?”

“More of the Methodists, I believe.”

He returned to my side.

“Skuss o’ Baptists, then, in Texas?”

“Yes, Sir, so I heard at San Antonio. In that town I understood there were no Baptists.”

“Nary Baptis—humph—sharp is she?”

“Rather.”

“Expect you don’t want to sell her?”

“No, Sir.”

“Expect you wouldn’t take her weight in gold for her?”

“I don’t know but I would. But good morning, Sir; I must jog along.”

“Don’t reckon to be partin’ with her then?”

“No, Sir.” I rode on, and he followed me.

“I should like to keep her for you, if you wanted to leave her.”

“I thank you, Sir; I do not.”

He walked along by my side. At length I asked what he would give for her.

“Oh, I did not expect you wanted to sell her.”

“I did not, Sir; but I would like to know what you would be willing to give for her.”

“I reckoned perhaps you’d like to leave her behind, if you could be sure of leaving her in good hands—if you could have some one that would take an interest in her. I wan’t thinking of buying your dog. Don’t know but I’d give ye a dollar for her.”

“I would not sell her, Sir, for fifty.”

He turned and left me without another word.

This man’s voice was a most exasperating, drawling whine. I noticed the same in the next man I conversed with this day. Among the lowest class of the Southerners the nasal tone is quite as common and intense and painful as in [313] the worst of the New-Englanders. It is not as often found among the middle and more educated class at the South as in New-England, however; but more or less of negro tones and idioms are common to all Southerners—even the most educated. The Yankee of the stage and of Punch, whom I never saw in New-England, I first met with in perfection in real life in South Carolina. Long, dry and dead hair and open mouth; slow, harsh, nasal utterance, and a vigilant, peering, sinister eye; wearing a narrow, swallow-tailed, snuff-colored coat, with brass buttons, short waistcoat and loose pantaloons, very short at top and bottom. Pork and molasses, generally called a New-England dish, I saw eaten for the first time, on land, in Mississippi.

The Mississippians and the Southerners generally are remarkably deficient in the kind of curiosity which characterizes the New-England Yankee; but an endless questioning without purpose, merely as an expression of social disposition, is a very common experience among the better sort of uneducated people. I do not think that I ever met with anything which I believed to have an impertinent basis or intention in any Southerner. Pure rudeness or surliness is another thing, and is more commonly met with by far in Mississippi than in any other country in which I have traveled.

Hernando (Miss.) Advance, June 22, 1854

The statements made in this paper are extracted or condensed from a letter of Dr. A. Douai, dated San-Antonio, Texas, September 4th 1854. Their accuracy and authenticity is certified to by Mr. Olmsted of New York who spent the last winter in Western Texas and made it his business to inform himself reliably upon the subject to which they relate.

Dividing the settled portions of the state of Texas with three sections—the first, between the Sabine and Trinity Rivers, the second, between the Trinity and the Guadalupe and the third, between the Guadalupe and the Rio Grande, the following classification of inhabitants may be made.

	Eastern Texas	Central T.	Western T.	Total
Whites Born in the Free States	8,000	7,000	10,000	25,000
Whites Born in the Slave States	66,000	32,000	40,000	138,000
Germans & Other Europeans	8,000	6,000	11,000	25,000
Mexicans	none		25,000	25,000
Negroes	32,000	18,000	35,000	85,000
Indians	2,000	1,000	7,000	10,000

Somewhat definite indications may be drawn from this classification, of the number of persons in Western Texas whose interests will be found in a few years to be opposed to the extension of Slavery and in favor of a free state between the Slave states on the gulf and the republic of Mexico.

All classes of the population of Western Texas are increasing rapidly except the Indians. The direct German immigration continues in an increasing ratio to that of the Americans. The whole Mexican population is opposed to slavery and opposed to the settlement of slaveholders in the country (while it is friendly to all other immigrants.) So distinctly is this the case that in two [315] counties where the slaveholders were most powerful, all the Mexican residents have been driven from their homes and expelled [from] the counties by Lynch-law process. All the male Mexican population is entitled to vote on arriving at mature age.

Among the German population there is a universal repugnance to slavery and a disinclination to its introduction or further extension in the country. But the majority of the German population being more or less dependent for employment or patronage on the slaveholders, who are the sole capitalists of the country, are timid, irresolute and conservative in their actions and expressions on the subject. They are forced to realize every day however that their ultimate interests are opposed to the Slave-labor system. A considerable part of the German population will be entitled to vote in from two to four years.

The Germans and Mexicans together form about 2/15 of the present white population. A strong party has lately been formed among the Germans, distinctly and avowedly hostile to the extension of Slavery. It includes in it many brave men who previous to the revolutions of 1848 had gained European reputations as Statesmen, Lawyers, Scholars, Merchants and Proprietors; many of whom now support their families solely by their manual labor, and are made directly cognizant of the degradation of labor effected by the presence of Slavery.

Of the American-born population, more than three quarters is nonslaveholding, but even more than the Germans, is subject to the moral rule of the slaveholders. “This,” says Dr. Douai, “may at anytime become otherwise. They may find out how different are their interests from those of the slaveholders. But it seems that the impulse, the issue, the beginning, must be made by us foreigners. In vain we have expected till this day, their initiating the matter, and now that we have started the movement, laid the foundation of a Free party, we find that there is something to be hoped from that quarter.”

A convention of about 140 Germans from all parts of the state was held at San Antonio on the 17th of May last, at which it was resolved that Slavery should be considered an evil to the country: that, nevertheless, legal rights of property in slaves should be respected and not violently or suddenly destroyed; but that, in legislation, it were better policy to take measures for the gradual and quiet extinction of the evil than for its perpetuation and extension.

No strong demonstration against these resolutions was made by the American press or people until more than a month after their publication: then one Rossy, a baptized Jew, formerly a representative from Comal County and notoriously a political speculator, denounced them and the new Free party (so called) in the American papers. A considerable part of the German population of San Antonio & New Braunfels were induced to take sides with Rossy against the movement. Immediately that this was known by the slaveholders and that large class of ruffianly characters who congregate in these frontier towns, their [316] constrained excitement burst forth with great violence. Public threats of lynching the leaders of the Free party were made, and it is believed that it was only because they speedily found that they could not rely upon the support of the “reactionary” Germans for extreme measures, and that the Free party was too strong to be easily conquered in a fight, that these threats were not executed. A great many Germans, however, were appalled by the violence of the slaveholders and their allies. The “San Antonio Zeitung,” a German paper which had published the resolutions against the perpetuation of slavery and which sustained the views of the Convention, was in danger of being broken up; many subscribers feared to take it and countermanded their subscriptions and many stockholders expressed their dissatisfaction with the editor.

This paper is owned by a large company of small share-holders. It was started about two years ago. The editorship had then been unanimously conferred upon Dr. Douai, a man admirably qualified, brave, discreet and amiable, as well as highly cultivated in all respects. He had then but lately arrived in Texas, having only escaped from prison within the year. Under his management, the Zeitung was very popular among the Germans and very successful, its subscription list soon becoming larger than that of any other of the 57 newspapers published in the state, with one exception. Notwithstanding extraordinary expenses it has paid 5 per cent. per annum on the capital invested, the editor himself receiving a salary of $600. on which he supports a large family and an aged father, formerly a clergyman in Europe and educated in luxury, in a city where the expenses of living are as great as in New York.

During the late excitement Dr. Douai offered his resignation to the directors, assuring them that he would remain in no situation where he was not perfectly free to express his convictions in accordance with his own discretion on any subject whatever. Forthwith, an attempt was made to have this resignation accepted and to employ Rossy as editor. It was found that there were three parties among the directors, a Free party, a Moderate or Quietist party and a Slavery party. It was finally resolved that on the 17th of September the paper should be sold, so as to make it wholly dependent on the public patronage—but not to the highest bidder, but to the bidder who should be on the whole most agreeable to the stockholders.

Dr. Douai, urged thereto by many of the directors, issued a Circular to all Germans in Texas on the subject, requesting the assistance and support of all who were in favor of practicing the rights of free thinking, speaking and voting on the subject of the extension of Slavery. On the 4th September he says, “At the time I write it is beyond doubt that the Zeitung can be sustained (by subscriptions) and continued in its free spirit and speech—can even speak more freely than before, finds a public where it had none before and will find many friends among Americans as soon as it shall be published half in English and half in German. This shall be done, as soon as I become proprietor.”

Dr. Douai had ascertained that a majority of the stockholders would [317] sell the paper and office to him on certain terms which he was prepared to offer, in preference to anyone else. (Advices since received announce that this has been done.)

Dr. Douai is poor and his party is poor. To enable him to carry on the paper and increase its influence as proposed, he requires a loan for one year of at least $340.00.

He writes to the friends of free speech at the North, who are not poor, in conclusion: “Well. Help us to save our paper founded so hardly by my one and half years work without just recompensation—endangered now and for ever if I cannot become its proprietor. Help us to save it from the hands of these Slaveholders and Hunkers who will get possession if I cannot myself, or if because of that little debt, and the want of paper and materials, I should be obliged to sell it again to the highest bidder.”

It is proposed to raise a fund to sustain free speech and to advocate the propriety and expedience of forming an ultimately free state in Western Texas.